Archive for the 'Stacy Clark' Tag Under 'Soundcheck' Category

December 2nd, 2010, 12:02 pm by KELLI SKYE FADROSKI, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

It has been a crazy year for Stacy Clark, the local singer-songwriter whose career has been charging ahead nonstop since the August release of her sophomore album, Connect the Dots.

In March she inked a deal with New York folk and Americana mainstay Vanguard Records, which agreed to put out her latest collection as part of its increasingly eclectic roster, alongside work from American Idol star Kimberly Caldwell, country legend Merle Haggard and folk-rock duo Indigo Girls.

It took a full year for the album, recorded in August 2009 in a Venice Beach studio with producer Matt Appleton, to see the light of day. But since its arrival Clark hasn't been able to take much of a break -- and she's just fine with that. She's booked small gigs all over the country and has enjoyed seeing her crowds grow from a dozen or so patrons at new tour stops to more like 100 fans turning out.

“It's like being a freshman in high school and now suddenly I'm a senior,” she says during a recent phone interview. “It's like I've been waiting and waiting for this, and finally it's here and I'm thrilled -- but now I'm out of high school and getting ready for college, so it's a little scary.”

After numerous gigs throughout the South and Northeast, Clark is back in her hometown and slated to perform an acoustic set Saturday at the Santa Ana Artwalk at the Santora Building to coincide with the debut of her video for the song “Not Enough.”

August 10th, 2010, 8:00 am by KELLI SKYE FADROSKI, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

It seems like a lifetime -- OK, maybe just five months -- since local pop artist Stacy Clarkspilled in an interview that she had inked a deal with New York-based label Vanguard Records. But today, Aug. 10, the East Coast mainstay -- known for its catalog of folk (Joan Baez, John Fahey) and blues artists (Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Junior Wells) and whose current roster includes former American Idol star Kimberly Caldwell, country legend Merle Haggard and folk-rock duo Indigo Girls -- delivers Clark's sophomore album, Connect the Dots.

It was last August that Clark headed into the studio to start work on the album in Venice Beach with producer Matt Appleton, known for his work with Panic at the Disco, the Veronicas and fellow O.C. act Saosin. He also played many of the instruments on the disc, including accordion, trumpet, ukulele and mandolin. The end result: a mature, full-sounding album complete with Clark's signature sweet vocals and true-life lyrics.

Connect the Dots opens with “Not Enough,” which comes across as a pep talk to herself after a relationship has crumbled: “I give the best that I can / I am not enough for you to love / Now you're all alone / It's time to grow up.” A similar self-uplifting message appears in “Hold On,” in which Clark coos dreamingly about wanting more out of her career: “In your search for perfection / Your life's a contradiction / You spent all of your money / You got nothing left to show.”

The disc runs the gamut of emotions, from the not-so-subtle warning of “All Time Low” (“If you knew what was good for you / You'd stay away from me”) to the somber honesty of “Misery” (“In the spotlight you never get cold/ Under the knife you never grow old/ But prettier and skinnier/ And all these things that misery brings”) and eventually the romantic sweetness of “I Do” (“Can you feel my heart beating fast? / I want to make this moment last / And the night is just for us / I really do love you”).

Since moving to Orange County from Buffalo in 2004, Clark has found increasing success with her music, scoring several local accolades, including best female performer at the 2006Southern California Music Awards and the same title at the 2007 OC Music Awards, as well as best pop artist at this year's ceremony.

“It's such a great roster with so many artists that I respect on it,” Clark said during a recent phone interview. “I'm super-duper happy to be on it and I feel like it's a label that will really understand me and my music. They have a lot of artists who write really good lyrics, and they've let them just be who they are.”

Just four days after signing that deal, a genuinely surprised Clark and her band accepted the award for best pop at the 2010 OC Music Awards at the Grove of Anaheim.

“It was awesome,” she says enthusiastically. “I was really totally shocked. We didn't have any expectations. We have standards and hopes and dreams, but I feel like being in this industry as long as I have, having super high expectations can really ... it can really break your heart.

It's strangely comforting to know that, just like the Grammys and Oscars, the OC Music Awards sometimes make no sense at all.

Take the case of Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, the biggest winner at Saturday's 9th annual ceremony at the Grove of Anaheim. They managed to win for both best country/Americana, which was expected, and also best rock, which surprised even the sextet itself, who were baffled as to how they beat out much heavier band Thrice. (“They rock a little harder than us,” guitarist Edson Choi told the crowd. “But they don't have an accordion.”)

Naturally, by night's end you'd have figured the River Band, already crowned champ of the best live band competition prior to this rainy night near Angel Stadium, would have been a shoo-in to take home best album, too, for the group's rousing third disc, Palace and Stage. But no -- in a bit of turnabout-is-fair-play, that honor went to Thrice, for its sixth set (or seventh, depending on how you divide 'em up), the strikingly progressive Beggars.

That seemed to stun the group's Breckenridge brothers, Ed and Riley, who accepted what may be Thrice's first major trophy. “I think I won most inspirational once,” Riley, the drumming Breckenridge, joked.

Such sincere reactions became a running theme of the evening. “This is the first award we ever got,” vocalist-guitarist Duddy Bushnell said when his band the Dirty Heads won for best world. “I don't even think we got soccer trophies when we were young … so we're stoked.” The quartet is currently making inroads at KROQ thanks to its hit “Lay Me Down,” a collaboration with new Sublime singer Rome Ramirez, who was on hand to help perform the track live Saturday night.

The run-up to the 9th annual OC Music Awards this Saturday at the Grove of Anaheim gathered steam over the weekend as winners were determined in the event's two on-the-spot judged categories, best live acoustic and best live band.

The next night, over at the posh Samueli Theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, roots-rocking outfit Dusty Rhodes and the River Band were named best live band. Also up for best album (for last year's excellent Palace and Stage) and best country/Americana (for which Rhodes & Co. face off against Kernkamp, among others), the group beat out fellow multiple OCMA nominees Blok and the Steelwells (both of whom will perform at the OCMAs) and the Colourist, as well as last year's best live band winner, the Union Line.

Each act earned a $2,500 voucher from Fender and a four-day recording session at Red Bull Studios, as well as performance spots at Saturday night's ceremony, for which tickets, $25, are still available.

Also, the online voting for the evening's People's Choice Award has ended, and the nominees are Canvas, Champagne Blvd., Duress, Uh Oh! Explosion and She Screams Remedy. The winner will be determined via texted votes during the show itself.

What a terrific grand re-opening of sorts: The old Yost Theater, a nearly century-old vaudeville in downtown Santa Ana that has been reintroduced as a haven for indie shows, got off to a great start Thursday night thanks to superb sets not just from kitschy-cool headliner the Bird and the Bee (left) but also local talents Melanoid(singer-songwriter John Hanson and his very capable crew) and pop charmer Stacy Clark, whose on-stage style this night was pitched somewhere between Zooey Deschanel and a softer Katy Perry.

Clark (right), cooing tenderly and strumming her acoustic-flavored tunes in a gold lamé mini-dress, quickly won over the early birds, who almost instantly rose from the theater's weirdly reclining general-admission seats to fill a dance floor that didn't exist when the Yost served as main hub for November's soundDowntown festival, the first step in Dennis Lluy's and Koo's Inc.'s revitalization of the long-underused venue. (Ripping out the first dozen rows or so was a wise move -- it enables more of a rock-show cluster at the stage while still enabling lookie-loos to observe from a distance without obstruction.)

The electro flourishes of Clark's debut (which earned her a nomination in the best pop category at the next Orange County Music Awards) were somewhat downplayed given her trio format, although occasional vocal assists from Civalias star Adam Stidham helped replace some of the lushness that went missing.

Frankly, the Bird and the Bee faced the same problem, as the duo of Inara George (vocals, bass) and Greg Kurstin (everything else) can't quite replicate the ornate, neo-Bacharachian splendor they've achieved on their two albums for the venerable jazz label Blue Note, their self-titled debut from 2007 (boasting the club smash "F***ing Boyfriend") and its delightful yet somewhat maligned follow-up from January, Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future.

The critical pans (from Rolling Stone, from AllMusic.com) haven't been a surprise; whenever sophisticates like these conjure something even faintly retro, it gets written off as an unwelcome attempt to revive some vague, mostly nonexistent lounge-pop scene.

The venue, built in 1912 as a Mexican vaudeville theater, feels a bit like a '70s movie house crossed with the sort of stage I remember from college, or even my high school cafeteria. That might not sound like much, I realize -- but a) it's yet another key piece in the overhauling of downtown Santa Ana into a thriving arts district, and b) it's perfect for showcasing acts (indie or otherwise) that perhaps have outgrown Detroit Bar but aren't quite to the level of filling the Grove.

Great news, then: What's now called Koo's Inc. (aka Koo's Art Cafe founder Dennis Lluy and crew) has just announced the first run of post-fest shows and events at the remodeled Yost.